We're the Millers: A hybrid of Raunchy comedy and 1980s and 1990s broad dramady

Before
anything, “We're the Millers” is basically a road trip comedy movie starring Jennifer
Aniston, Jason Sudeikis. You stick a group of people in an automobile and move them
from point A to B. Along the way, hilarity ensues. Thus, it is a throwback to the
road trip movies of the 80s and early 90s.

However, the
latter is just seasoning to the former in “We're the Millers”. You should not
expect to see a raunchy comedy movie although there are some raunchy scenes. The
current raunchy comedy trend is to movie from one raunchy joke to another. Thus,
a movie has about 30 jokes with about half of them missing their mark. In “We're
the Millers”, there are only about 10 outright jokes throughout the whole movie
and most of them hit their mark. The rest of the move is filled with humorous but
not outright funny scenes. In that sense, it has the timing of a dramady
although it does not have enough drama to actual be one.

In that way, it is
similar to the movies Steve Martin did during the 80s and early 90s. Those
movies hinged upon the charm of the actors and their dynamic interaction with
jokes used as flavoring.

In that
sense, “We're the Millers” works. In this movie, Jason Sudeikis is a small time
drug dealer forced to go to Mexico to smuggle a butt-load of marijuana across
the borders. In order to blend in and not get detected crossing the border, he recruits
a fake family and loads them up on a RV for a 3 day round trip. The plot in
this movie is only an excuse to bring these people together. The fact that you
don not actually miss there not being more plot shows how well the cast works
with each other. Even from the beginning, you believe that these people could
be a family.

For this
movie, family is defined according to sitcom rules set in the suburbs not a
family in reality. In many movies, this definition of family could make the
movie shallow. However, in “We're the Millers”, this actually works well within
the context of the movie. All the characters in the fake Miller family are slightly
deviated versions of those sitcom family members. They are people who fit right
in to those sitcom families but life had somehow not provided them with those
families biologically. Thus, they are lost and slightly deviant in the nature.
I mean, you have a drug dealer, a stripper, a street hoodlum, and an odd
neglected boy.

So, once you get these characters together, you get them naturally
falling into their sitcom roles as goofy father, caring but slightly wild
mother, slutty but caring daughter, kind but shy son.

For the audience,
it is a joy seeing them going through this process and liking it as it was what
they were meant to be without the baggage of an actual biological family. Also,
the jokes, which are sprinkled throughout the movie, are actually funny
although not ground breaking.

This description
of the movie may give an impression of the movie being more sophisticated than
it is actually is. Most of the stuff I said before is more hinted in the
performances and not the pages of the script. It is the actors’ chemistry that brings
things out of the movie rather than the movie brings things out of the actors. The movie just does not get in the way except
for one scene.

The strip scene which has been forefront in all the trailers is awkwardly
situated in the middle of the movie and actually stops the movie for a minute.
Thankfully, it is over in no time.

“We're the
Millers” is a comedy movie with a relaxed tempo and a broad sense of humor.
While there is some raunchiness, at its core, it is not an edgy comedy. It is a
funny lite weight comedy reminiscent of movies too decades ago during the glory
days of comedy movies. If you like that period or your taste in humor is not limited
to more cutting comedy, you will enjoy this movie.